Anthony S.

Prior to the experience on November 28, 2007, I had been at work at a Sears Call Center. All that day I had a headache that would not go away. Co-workers told me that I kept falling asleep at my cubicle, yet I didn’t even realize it. Later after lunch that day, I began to ‘see’ what I can best describe as a ‘red flashing slash’ over my right eye? It remained there the rest of the day. I mention this and will explain later.

I was driving to a local grocery store after work to pick up a few items for dinner with my family. I never made it to the store. I suffered a stroke and heart attack while driving. I drifted into oncoming traffic and was hit by a large truck nearly head on. The impact left me hanging partially out the driver’s side door by my seat belt. I was conscious enough to release the belt. Fortunately, an off duty firemen across the street responded immediately. The crazy thing is that I was outside my body watching the EMT drop his taco and run across the street to help me. Next I saw myself lying on the street from just above my body as the sound of sirens came closer. Half of my body was bathed in, what I can best describe as, a white and silvery light with the other half of me bathed in the darkest of blacks. I don’t know why, but something told me that the side with the deepest of black was something no one could return from.

Off to my left, I heard a voice chewing me out for how I had lived my life to that point and that ‘GOD doesn’t take fence sitters.’ The voice then stated, ‘Go back and experience the pain you’ve caused others!’ Six days later, even though it felt like just a few hours, I awoke from a coma. They told me that my heart had stopped en route to the hospital and that I nearly died.

When I awoke my wife, my wife was there. I was told that I had congestive heart failure, at age 49. I was also told that I would have many months of physical therapy and that it would be a long road back. I was weakened by the stroke on my left side and it sure appeared that many months to recover. I couldn’t count to 10, nor could I even say the alphabet. A month later, I was released from physical therapy on Christmas Day 2007. I walked out of the hospital not perfect but I did walk. GOD is Truly Great!

Update: couple of odd things happened while in the Intensive Care Unit. I remember telling the charge nurse that it was odd that the folks who assisted me throughout the night looked so much like kids I went to high school with and how kind they were. I specifically remember one attendant stating, ‘I was here when they brought you in and you were in pretty bad shape!’ Imagine my amazement when the nurse told me that nobody had been in my room overnight other than to check my vital signs because I was heavily sedated.

Update2: Starting in or around February 2009 until it stopped suddenly in 2012, I would awaken every night at exactly at 3:16 a.m. EVERY NIGHT. Just to test why this was happening, I even stayed awake one day the entire day going and then going to bed at 2 a.m. and I still woke up at 3:16 a.m.